Bojana
-
Posts
243 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Help Articles
Posts posted by Bojana
-
-
The cake was truly amazing. Son of our hostess asked me to either adopt or marry him, and there was a content silence while everyone was eating it. The "collapsing" of sauce worked well too, gave it that little bit of drama. Did not serve anything else next to it.
Served pineapple basil sorbet just before it, which worked well.
-
I compared your formula to the one I use (Pierre Herme recipe) and you have too little dry matter. I'd use 23 grams more of both of icing sugar and almond. Also, you use too much water for your syrup, 59 grams (jsut to make sugar wet) is enough.
"Mixed 212g almond flour and 212g powder sugar
Made a hollow mound, poured in 82g egg whites
Mixed it rather violently with a spatula until the batter had an even texture
Added vanilla seeds, more violent mixing"
This should have texture close to marzipan, I often think I will not be able to get the entire sugar/almond mixture wet with the first half of eggwhite, but it does work in the end , just barely. Yours was probably too wet at this step.
-
Hi Creola,
the dinner is coming Friday. I have decided to cheat. Will first serve a very small portion of pineapple basil sorbet as palette cleanser and then proceed with the cake as Mr. Gilmore serves it, without any additions. I'll post the reactions next weekend.
-
I use boiron often, great products and great recipes
-
I so wanted to love this book. While I have not tried any recipes yet, I am actually a bit disappointed about several things:
- Probably aroudn 30% of recipes is for the professional kithcen and not within consumers reach (talk about making own chocolate, grinding cocoa beans etc). So are the recipe quantities
- Photos are very arty but many are hard to see well and figure out how to recreate them
- I hate flipping back and forth. You see a tempting photo, you need to go 50 pages further to see the recipes and for some of those you need to go back to the beginning to the method section
If I had the book in my hands before I bought it, I would not end up buying it.
- Probably aroudn 30% of recipes is for the professional kithcen and not within consumers reach (talk about making own chocolate, grinding cocoa beans etc). So are the recipe quantities
-
Finally had the time this weekends to make the flaky pie crust, made mini tartlets and filled with almond cream (frangipane) and raspberries & blueberries.
I love the formula! It will be my go to recipe for many similar pies, flaky, tasty, sweet but no too much. The dough was a dream to roll out, but the MC@H recipe lacks details to make it fool proof. I want to give everyone here few tips that I feel complete the recipe:
· Butter not only needs to be cold, put cubed butter for at least 30 mins in the freezer
· Mix the fry ingredients first, then add frozen butter but mix only until butter is a bit larger than pea size
· When start mixing egg yolk, have ice water at ready too. I found that I needed to add close to 50ml of water after adding yolk. The point is that dough just needs to start hanging together
· After fridge rest, give it at least 10-15 minutes at room temp before rolling out
· I prefer to cut my dough neatly for the form (no overhang) and just give it another fridge rest in the baking form, this helps to prevent shrinkage. By cutting overhand after baking, you loose part of lovely brown crust
· Keep the scraps and bake delicious cookies of them but do not re-knead
Finally, some pics
Scraps, broken to show the lovely flakiness (sorry its upside down, no time to fix the photo now)
Finished products
I liked raspberry ones better, they had more of a punch than blueberries. I still have to try the cream version although it does not appeal to me too much (sounds too rich), maybe someone else will test and report?
-
Hi,
I have slowly cooked some pork belly submerged in duck fat. Was planning to strain it and reuse for similar cooking. How many times can I do this before I have to throw away the duck fat? What are the spoilage signs to watch for? Any other advice?
Much appreciated,
Bojana
-
Pork belly revisited
I made pork belly adobo for the 2nd time, with minor alterations. I cooled everything down after cooking, to remove the fat. Then I cut off the rind and quickly caramelized the remaining fat on the top. I baked the rinds separately until they were caramelised and served those as a snack.
We all enjoyed it much better than the previous version that had somewhat soft and fatty rind - I can highly recommend this approach, if you have the extra time for cooling down and baking the tops of pieces separately.
-
Great discussion, so interessting to see all the different opinions, that reflect different personal tastes.
I am loving the orange sorbet& candied rind idea, with some grand marinier, this is how i would love to eat it. However, my husband and another person that will be there hate this combo, so i will spare them.
I have finished making the cake, it is sitting in my freezer. I will most likely make lavander sorbet to test it for myself (find the idea very intriguing) and at this dinner i will serve it nude, with some cocoa explosions as plate decor.
-
Have you eaten the cake before? At the restaurant they serve it nude. Not so much as a quenelle of cream. It doesn't need anything. In fact, finishing it is a fair achievement.
No I have not eaten it before. In fact, after reading the recipe, I have decided to cut the portion size in roughly half (6cm instead of 10 cm circles). I somehow feel I will need a fresh and cold bite after each chocolate bite but finishing may be a challenge indeed. It is supposed to be the grand finale of a 8 course dinner, that will include foie gras, pork belly, scallops and few other totally light ingredients
. -
I can report that pressure caramelized vegetables can be made perfectly without any butter, for those among us that find them too rich. Tonigh I made celeriac pure with neutral oil, 15 gr of it, and a splash of water. Got really nice and deep flavour thanks to baking soda, and it was light enough to figure as vegetable next to our red wine glazed steaks and couscous with apples and fennel.
-
I have found one that sounds interesting, lemon and vodka will give it just that little extra. I will surely make it, even if it does not end up on the same plate with my chocolate cake.
Lavender Sorbet Recipe
Cuisine: Italian
Yields: 10 to 12 servings
Prep time: 15 min
Ingredients:
1 cup granulated sugar
2 cups water
1 tablespoon culinary lavender flowers (food grade)
2 1/2 tablespoons freshly-squeezed lemon juice
2 tablespoons vodka
Preparation:
In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine sugar and water until the sugar dissolves. Add the lavender flowers; stir until mixture comes to a boil; reduce heat to low and simmer 5 minutes. Remove from heat, cover, and let stand approximately 10 minutes.
Place a fine strainer over a large bowl and pour syrup mixture through (straining out the lavender flowers). Add lemon juice and vodka to the strained syrup mixture; stir until thoroughly blended.
-
I'd want a very mild sherbet, like Rose, Passionflower, or perhaps Lavender to cleanse the palate and allow for a deeper appreciation of the chocolate, myself....
Mmm, I am intrigued by the lavander idea, I have both dried lavander and lavander essential oil I could play with. Do you have a recipe by any chance?
-
Don't forget the the good old wood fired pizza oven in your backyard
-
I feel we will need something fresh to cut through the richness of the cake. Creme fraiche ice cream sounds divine but would not it be too rich?
Maybe adding 9th texture of chocolate - chocolate sorbet?
-
Hi,
I am making Peter Gilmore's eight textures of chocolate cake and need suggestions for sorbet/ice flavours to pair it with. Normally, I would make raspberry sorbet with chocolate but this cake is chocolate & caramel. Recipe can be found here:
http://www.masterchef.com.au/recipes/eighttexture-chocolate-cake.htm
The only few alterations I will do is make a lighter chocolate mousse (no eggs), freeze for neat stacking and brush dacquoise with melted cocoa butter to prevent it from going soggy after defrosting. In essence, keeping the chocolate and caramal spirit in.
What sorbets can you think of next to raspberry (I love crazy flavours)?
Should I garnish it further (ideas: olive oil powder and salted butter caramel) or keep it clean at just this decadent cake and sorbet?
Thanks!
-
Does dacquoise cake freeze well? I am making Peter Gilmore's eight textures of chocolate cake and i want to freeze it for neater unmoulding. The only element I am concernedis dacquiose, that sits between choco mousse and choco caramel ganache. I would not want it to go soggy after defrosting.
Any advice?
-
I've joined the ranks of people who have done the Adobo and loved it. Easy to do and was amazing. I loved the sauce with rice.
The only change I would make next time I think would be taking the skin off the belly. It was just a bit to 'soft' on some pieces with all the heavy fat plus the skin creating a mouth feel that wasn't optimal. The meaty parts of the belly were phenominal though. It's one I would definitly select belly with more meat than fat. The left overs were great as well.
I have the rest of the belly I bought in the water bath right now waiting some BLTs for election night. I'm pretty interested how those come out.
I think pork skin servers to give gelatin and the great mouthfeel to the braising liquid. You can remove it after cooking though, I may actually do the same.
I made red wine glaze tonight. It is finger lickin' good. Cannot wait for my sous vide to arrive to make short ribs to go with it.
-
I made tonight Migoya inspired chocolate mousse brulee. It worged great with exception of one thing - caramel took time to set and was still not britle when we started eating. I did not have Migoya's chill spray, and warm chocolate did not help. If your foam is cold, that may work better. I used castor sugar.
-
I am going to make the slow cooked chicken smothered in onions for dinner tonight. Has anyone tried that one? I'm curious about how it turned out.
I made it, with some modifications
. Used chicken legs, which perhaps was a mistake. My onions did not look anything like in the picture in the end, they were crunchy and the meat was a tad too tough. Most likely my fault but I was not too thrilled by this recipe. To be fair, I was stressed out (sick hubby and sick child) and rushing to serve it so that may have contributed to the fact that I did not enjoy it. Please let us know how yours turned out, I want to give it another try soon as well. -
There is an interesting technique Rose Levy Beranbaum recommends in All American Apple Pie: let the apples macerate with sugar and boil down the resulting liquid with your butter. Here, leaving your apples prepped overnight may actually improve the end product.
-
Chris, if you have opportunity, I can really recommend finding a good pastry chef and taking few classes. It brings you light years ahead. I have done a short pastry course (4 days) in past, amazing how many neat tricks of trade you can pick, that make going through any pastry book a breeze. Some moves (such as folding a mousse or a batter), mixing dough, even mixing cream to the right consistency, are difficult to explain/convey in written form. Youtube works as second best but if you can, go for the real deal.
-
Hi all -- I'd like to make the carrot soup, but the amount of butter in it is a turn off to me. Do you think I could cut down on the butter and add a tablespoon or two of water to the pot?
I do it all the time, even without adding water. I probably use less than half the butter they recommend, i have no problem with butter, just found the taste too rich and cut it down. I use a non venting pressure cooker.
-
Are the recipes in grams?
I love modern too! Cannot wait for my copy!
Macarons: Troubleshooting & Tips
in Pastry & Baking
Posted
How funny, I just ordered Bouchon Bakery today, how do you like it for the rest?
On the macaron note, a lot of things matter I found, treating batter certainly does and can cause what you experienced. Undermixing yoru batter is better than overmixing so you can try that next time. I'd say do all your mixing liberaly but not too energetically until the last meringue addition. That one you start beating until your batter becomes runny to the extent that if you drop a spoonfull of batter in the massa, it disappears in 30 sec.